The Place
A long and winding track takes you out of the village of Casalini for almost 3 km before you reach the hushed, olive-flanked Perugian valley where La Rosa Canina lies. Sandro Belardinelli and his wife made their home here in 1989, setting aside part of two 15thC cottages as guest quarters.
The dog-rose, from which the farm takes its name, is just one of the profusion of flowers which give the banks of the front garden their perennial colour. Behind the house, the menagerie of animals and the wire-fenced vegetable garden breathe real country living into what might have been just another converted farmhouse.
Inside, the guest rooms are reasonably proportioned and furnished with a hotch-potch of furniture, old and not so old. The wooden mangers in the downstairs dining room are a reminder that it was once a cattle stall. The dinner menu, based upon traditional cucina umbra, varies according to season, but Swiss-born Signora Belardinelli places emphasis on the quality of her food – all vegetables are home produce, as is the olive oil, much of the meat, and the jam on the breakfast table.